(by Steve Hopkins)
Number two Saarbrucken rolled over third seeded Muhlhausen today 3-0 in the Semifinals of the TTBL Germany Leagues. Franziska, Jorgic, and Polansky each won their singles match (over Habesohn, Ionescu, and Bertrand). The match was played in Muhlhausen, so Saarbrucken will also enjoy the advantage of home court when the meet next week in the best-two-of-three series.
Top seeded (and heavily favored) Dusseldorf had a slow start today against Fulda. Fulda’s Alexandre Cassin upset Kristian Karlsson 3-2, and then Fan Bo Meng upset Timo Boll 3-2 to give Fulda a commanding lead. Quadri Aruna, however, fell to Dang Qui 0-3, and then Anton Kallberg evened the match score 2-2 with his win over Cassin. That made the deciding match doubles, and Dusseldorf’s Qiu and Karlsson topped Aruna and Meng 3-1 to secure the win.
Dusseldorf and Saarbrucken have been the best two teams since about the half-way point of the season. Saarbrucken topped Dusseldorf in the half-season tournament, and Dusseldorf topped Saarbrucken in the last match of the European Champions league. At this point, it seems almost inevitable that we’ll see a third Saarbrucken/Dusseldorf match-up in a couple of weeks to decide the TTBL championship.
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